11 ms·

I used to be a huge Valve fanboy, but throughout the years they've managed to burn away all of that goodwill through a combination of not building good games an

• olliej 6y ago
  I don’t think it’s fair to compare it directly to gambling, as in actual gambling the odds can’t be changed dynamically while you play to increase addiction.
  • andrewksl 6y ago
    Exactly. At least gambling is regulated.
  • nefitty 6y ago
    So are you saying the loot box model is more addictive than standard gambling? There are currently efforts to implement more skill-based gambling into digital gambling, ie fight game machine tournaments with money stakes, etc
    • olliej 6y ago
      Once it starts being skill based it changes from pure gambling to skill based betting. Loot boxes are purely "luck" based gambling, where your "luck" is dynamically altered based on how much the operators are get you addicted. Including occasional "free" rewards to encourage you to buy more with actual money.
• imafish 6y ago
  I think a great article could be written on how much of the gaming industry, including PC games, phone games and twitch streamers are funded by whales without self control, who are mainly children and teens.
  • retsibsi 6y ago
    'Mainly children and teens' may be true, but I don't think it is obvious without evidence. (Intuitively it seems likely that most of the people involved are kids, but most of the $ are spent by adults, and 'most of the whales' depends on the definition of whale.) But IMO there's no magic line between children and adults that makes it okay to harmfully exploit someone's weaknesses provided they're over 18. I know focusing on children makes sense, because it's even harder to justify in that case, and probably more legally dubious. But I hope we're not implicitly saying it is/would be ethically okay provided they only take advantage of adults.
    • michaelt 6y ago
      > But IMO there's no magic line between children and adults that makes it okay to harmfully exploit someone's weaknesses provided they're over 18. Seems to me freedom of choice isn't just about selecting between good decisions, but having the right to make bad ones. Freedom isn't merely the choice between 'Fresh Stripe' toothpaste and 'Total Whitening' toothpaste - it's having the choice to go without even though it's dumb to have your teeth fall out. Any society willing to ban lootboxes for informed, consenting, mentally competent adults would have no problem with banning porn and smoking and drinking too much and bicycling without a helmet by following the same logic. There are steps you could take short of a total ban, of course - as we do for other vices.
      • scrollaway 6y ago
        It's common in societies to ban substances and practices which are toxic and/or harmful to people and those around them. This includes hard drugs (smoking and alcohol get a pass primarily due to a pre-existing legacy userbase and industry, but they wouldn't even sort of get that today, anywhere, in a fresh slate, especially nicotine), unsafe practices on the road (such as not wearing a seat belt), and indeed porn where consent is not explicit and informed (revenge porn and child abuse). And you'll note a lot of economic practices are banned in the Land Of The Free(tm), Ponzi schemes being a good example. Is this unreasonable? If you're a libertarian you might argue it is, but most people think it's a perfectly fine thing to ban. Not saying you're wrong (although I personally would like to see some of the more exploitative practices in the games industry banned), but you are way off.
• shmerl 6y ago
  I never liked their DRM stance and personally not using Steam and buying games in DRM-free stores instead, but Valve gained a lot of goodwill by backing Linux gaming and important gaming related FOSS projects like Mesa, Wine, dxvk, vkd3d and advancing Vulkan and OpenXR in general. They are still lacking effort in marketing of Linux gaming, but their technical backing is really great.
  • Akronymus 6y ago
    Why exactly do you dislike their DRM stance? AFAIK devs don't have to use it.
    • shmerl 6y ago
      I don't like stores that proliferate DRM. GOG has the right approach about it. They simply don't allow DRMed games in their store and actively work with publishers to dispel their messed up DRM mentality.
      • thaumasiotes 6y ago
        > GOG has the right approach about it. They simply don't allow DRMed games in their store This is definitely not true. There are DRMed games in their store right now. Yes, at the same time the homepage says "We are GOG.COM, the DRM-free home for a curated selection of games."
        • shmerl 6y ago
          Are there? Which ones?
    • rossvor 6y ago
      Well it's matter of comparing it to their competitors. GOG actively advertises and encourages devs to eschew DRM, lots of games became DRM-free just to appear on the store. Humble also actively advertised DRM-free games, and even source-available games, though granted, nowadays it's more of alternative steam store interface with charity, with very few direct download titles. itch.io, due to the area they operate in -- niche indies -- it's pretty much cultural standard to have no DRM, so they don't even have to mention it.
• bE9a3S5So8igd3 6y ago
  As far as I understand "loot boxes" I don't think they qualify as gambling. At least not any more than buying a pack of Pokemon cards in the 90s.
  • retsibsi 6y ago
    I would say those cards were a kind of gambling too, but the current version is much more refined and dangerous. They've had years to perfect the psychology, and it's a lot easier to lose control when you can instantly give in to the compulsion by clicking a mouse, rather than having to leave the house, go to a store, look a cashier in the eye, etc.
  • apocolyps6 6y ago
    The main reason Pokemon cards (and the like) aren't legally gambling is because the company can claim to not be officially aware of the price of the cards on the secondary market. If those same cards were sold individually by the company they would no longer have even this flimsy defense.
    • WorldMaker 6y ago
      Which is why Valve taking a cut of Marketplace fees is so dangerously flirting with gambling laws.
  • takeda 6y ago
    Who said buying pack of Pokemon cards wasn't gambling? The redeeming thing with Pokemon was that when you spent money back then you knew exactly how much you spent and you couldn't spend more than your allowance. Another redeeming thing was that with Pokemon you actually had a physical object that you could also trade with your friends. By any means I'm not trying to defend Pokemon, but wanted to show that this is much worse.
    • bE9a3S5So8igd3 6y ago
      > Who said buying pack of Pokemon cards wasn't gambling? Me. A pack of Pokemon cards is a tangible investment. As are, as far as I understand them, "loot boxes." The trading value may be probabilistic, but it's not quite the same as making a financial bet as in the stock market, lottery, traditional casino "gambling" It used to be that you'd get toys with McDonald's happy meals. I believe the toy you'd end up with was also a matter of probability. There was also a candy phenomenon in the late 90s/early 00s called the "Wonder Ball." The commercials, imploring you to consider "What's in the Wonder Ball?" Also probabilistic. I wouldn't say either of these examples is gambling. At this point it seems appropriate to mention that it actually doesn't matter whether something qualifies is "gambling" or not. It matters only to the extent that in 2020 people are fixated on labeling things, as if the word we've crafted to describe something is itself meaningful. These words tend to be trendy and suitable for e-propagation on Twitter words like "incel" or "autistic." Or "That's gambling! #gambling-bad" There are lots of dumb things people can invest in. And investing in dumb things has gotten easier. That doesn't mean every purchase with a probabilistic value on the market is gambling, or that "gambling bad" and "not-gambling good." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Meal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Meal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Ball https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Ball
• akhilcacharya 6y ago
  The sheer quality of Alyx and their transparency this past few months has helped gain a lot of it back for me at least!
• Accacin 6y ago
  I truly hate loot boxes, and I'll never buy any personally, but the way it worked in Dota 2 originally was a little different although it did change over time. At first you could just buy item sets, which I didn't bother with, but you could also buy tickets to pro games, which I enjoyed and sometimes you'd get a bonus item. Also, the sets were made by third parties, and they'd get a cut of the sales. Also, all the gear could be sold on the Steam Market (generally for pennies though..). Eventually this morphed into you could only 'gamble' for the sets by buying loot boxes which was a big step down, but there was still the option to buy from someone on the Steam Marketplace - so at least that was an option. Overall, I found Valve's lootbox implementation the best as you could sell and buy on the Marketplace, but I preferred the original way where I could just buy a character set that I wanted.
  • Twisell 6y ago
    Also as far I can tell in valve lootbox model there is no competitive advantage gained. Buyers only get new cosmetics items, achievements and secondary goals. This is a far better standard than pay2win models that require payement to level up or skip time consuming actions. People who pay look cool, but people who can't afford still get to win using their skills.
    • setzer22 6y ago
      Note that the "it's just cosmetics" argument is flawed. Loot boxes are still exploiting the human psyche to earn enormous amounts of money from a small amount of customers (or whales, as they put it, ugh...), regardless of the perceived value they actually offer. There's actually the toxic culture revolving around cosmetic upgrades in games, where using the default skins is considered a sign of poverty, and leads to discrimination among groups of young people. Fortnite is one of the games where this issue is more prominent.
      • Twisell 6y ago
        Yes it's far from perfect, my point is that is was still better than pay2win. Whether free2play is more or less discriminating than DRM AAA titles with price starting at 12x the price of an optional pass is a whole other real question. Regulation of virtual goods economics market will be an important debate. But most people don't even know about these huge markets, let alone politicians. One key point is that current copyright laws are totally inadequate to latest technologies. Company can build empire based on copyrighted material in a heartbeat while decades are needed before anything enter to the public domain. So much energy is wasted fighting legal roadblock instead of innovating on previous concepts...
• gempir 6y ago
  Runescape embraced the subscription model and very little people had a problem with paying that subscription. It felt really fair. But still today RS3 is riddled with MTX while you also have to pay a membership fee.
• deleted 6y ago
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• ilugaslifk 6y ago
  I don't know enough about the history of microtransactions and loot boxes to evaluate your charge that they "pioneered" them, and that indeed could be quite important to any calculation of how much goodwill they deserve. But I know that in making that calculation, I personally couldn't give less of a shit about whether or not they released Half-Life 3, when they've been the patron saint of gaming on Linux. Which they haven't just barely saved from oblivion, but been the biggest single force in turning into an actual viable competitor. I hope I don't need to explain why that matters for reasons that go beyond whether or not you are personally directly invested in gaming on Linux. Their strongest recent competition (Epic) has not just been indifferent to gaming on Linux, they've actively done enormous damage to it: they've bought exclusive rights to popular mainstream games which fully supported Linux, and removed that support. Though the picture is further complicated in that the other big competitor, GOG.com (run by CD Projekt, the Polish developers of the Witcher series), are easily the best citizens altogether, most importantly for their commitment to DRM-free distribution. But they also aren't the ones doing Proton.
  • zelphirkalt 6y ago
    I wonder how much of Proton development is really Valve and how much is originally Wine contributors though. Fortunately Wine is GPL afaik and requires modifications to be contributed back to the community. So even if it is a cheap way for Valve to gain customers, it means there is a chance contributions flow back and forth between Proton and Wine.
    • ekianjo 6y ago
      Its mostly Valve funding external developers like Codeweavers and Philip Rebhole.
    • BlackLotus89 6y ago
      The investment into linux gaming isn't only wine thought. They are working behind the scenes into fixing the rough edges and creating a smooth experience. They pushed publishers to develop linux ports, they hired developers, they created a linux gaming distribution (steamos and the "failed" steamos console) and do their own research and development like ACO [0]. Proton in the end is "only" wine bundled with a good patchset and preinstalled debendencies, but even in the beginning you could get a good gaming experience out of the box that you only got through manual patching and tuning with wine. [0] https://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/0/1640915206474070669/ https://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/0/16409152...
• dawnerd 6y ago
  For me it's just how terrible the steam client was for the longest time. Epic comes around, releases a client that ends up having features people were asking and they've been really transparent about what they're working on. The lack of communication from Valve over the years has really done them in IMO.
  • raxxorrax 6y ago
    The Epic client lacks basic features Steam offers. They tried to set up their platform because of the massive liquidity from fortnite, which is completely funded by micro-transactions, which are not an inch less predatory. What features do you think Steam is missing?
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    • Riverheart 6y ago
      Not OP but the ability to ignore games that don't support English. Steam Labs introduction of price filters should've have been available ages ago.
  • executesorder66 6y ago
    Which feature's does Epic's client have that steam doesn't? I wouldn't know because epic's client can't even run on Linux.
• bzb3 6y ago
  And let's not forget how CSGO feels abandoned and eaten by cheaters. VAC is practically useless and they've avoided writing or licencing a proper anti cheat engine.
  • sleavey 6y ago
    I think they don't care because they offer a subscription mode that is 99% cheater free in my experience. I got promoted to prime mode after playing the game so much (I don't pay for it). Cheaters are not willing to burn the prime fee ban after ban so stay on the free servers.
    • fbnlsr 6y ago
      I've been playing CS:GO for 5 years, totalling close to 3,000 hours. I can tell you cheaters are still a huge problem, especially at high rank. Also, the matchmaking system is utterly broken. It's insane that half of my games are plagued with at least one low-level steam account with a player that's totalling 400 hours and dropping 35 kills in a game. Also, being LE and queuing up against MGE that instantly headshot you while jump shooting feels sad. Considering CS:GO has 500,000 to 800,000 concurrent players at any time, I find it difficult for the system to create such unbalanced and flawed games.
      • andybak 6y ago
        > Also, being LE and queuing up against MGE Could you supply a glossary? I'm trying to follow this discussion.
        • bzb3 6y ago
          They are CSGO ranks. Use Google to find the full list.
        • fbnlsr 6y ago
          Oh sorry. CS:GO is divided in 18 ranks, from Silver 1 to Global Elite. The rank distribution follows a bell curve, and comes a point where it's really hard to go from one rank to the next. LE is Legendary Eagle, the 15th rank. MGE is Master Gardian Elite, the 13th rank. Matchmaking is supposed to be done in a way where you should not meet people that are way lower or way higher than your rank. But since it's a team game, it takes into account the average level of the team. I won't go into too much detail but it's definitely not uncommon to meet teams that are a complete mix of random ranks and for some reason a guy that's supposed to be much weaker than the rest top frags everyone. It's a really complex system, as a few months ago Valve introduced the Trust Factor, an index which, through machine learning, supposedly puts cheaters in an alternate queue. It takes into account multiple elements, such as your account age, how much you've spent, how much you play, with how many people, how many people report you, etc, etc. Sometimes it works wonderfully. I get to play with people that are nice, have great game sense and communication, and I'm having a blast. Then I get queued with ragers, team killers, it's super annoying. Just last night I played two games. The first one was really good, then we got absolutely obliterated by a guy who had the most perfect angles, timings, speed, you name it. I checked his steam account and saw he was level 4 (you can level your steam account through using the service) and had 450 hours in the game. Now I'm not saying that I'm the best there is. But I've clocked close to 3,000 hours, and I've played on the three major platforms (Valve MM, Faceit and ESEA) for years. I have a 11 years steam account with 250 games on it, and in 5 years I must have had maybe 3 penalties caused by my internet crashing. So I'm confident my Trust Factor is good. Then again I get queued with and against cheaters constantly. It's just super annoying, especially considering the fact that a game typically lasts 45 minutes to an hour, and with a 3 years old at home, I can crank one, maybe two games a day at most.
• Bootwizard 6y ago
  I'm in the same boat as you. Grew up on Valve games, and they even inspired me to become a game developer. I was a mobile game dev at my last job, and it really pained me to see firsthand how much that company was in a stranglehold to develop more and more content to put into the lootboxes instead of improving and adding to the gameplay itself. Not to mention new ways to give out that content. Its a viscious cycle that never ends. I feel lucky to have been laid off now that I look back at it a few months later. I'm never going back to game dev again after that experience. That isn't the only reason but it's a big one.
  • ubercow13 6y ago
    Putting aside the moral issues of lootboxes, I quite like Valve's development model for multiplayer games. The revenue they get from the marketplace etc. allows them to continue improving on games for a long time without the pressure to constantly release new versions of the same game. This longevity is nice for competitive multiplayer games because the skills you develop aren't obsoleted so quickly.
  • markus_zhang 6y ago
    Mobile game dev pretty much revolves around telemetry and marketing campaigns.
• raxxorrax 6y ago
  I don't think these options you named are the only solutions to fund ongoing development. DLC or addons how they were called before are numerous. I think the models like subscription to platforms would be very bad for the quality of games.
• skocznymroczny 6y ago
  It's interesting how the developers and publishers managed to convince players that the only alternative to a subscription fee is f2p + microtransactions. Guild Wars was a success despite having neither. What happened to the expansion pack business model?
  • bickeringyokel 6y ago
    I think the "free" part of f2p is quite compelling to a lot of people. Indeed "free" software in general seems to rule the world.
    • throwawayffffas 6y ago
      The free software that "rules the word" is not free in the same sense that f2p is free. It's not the price that has allowed open source software to be in its current position. f2p is free as in beer.
      • Dylan16807 6y ago
        Why do you think they were specifically talking about open source? Windows for home users is also "free" and ruling the world.
      • bickeringyokel 6y ago
        Indeed I meant free as in beer. Open source runs everything under the hood, but I wasn't refering to open source in this case. I'm talking about how the most profitable companies provide things for "free" because people don't understand the value of their time.
  • WorldMaker 6y ago
    Guild Wars has just about always had a microtransaction shop. It's less emphasized than the boxed products, but it's tough to consider Guild Wars' model that different from an F2P model. Especially as both Guild Wars have "free to start" options today, the line is blurry if non-existent. It's also not a model that has disappeared or anything. Not just in the MMO space where there are plenty that may or may not be free-to-start but claim their primary financial driver is expansion packs. Overwatch is sort of based on that model, but always had loot boxes. Destiny was based on that model, but always had micro-transactions. Destiny 2 is now free-to-start, and again that line is really blurry between F2P micro-transactions and "expansion pack business model".
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• treebornfrog 6y ago
  I agree with this. I used to play condition zero (counter strike) when I was 11-12 at the same time learning frontpage and photoshop. I used to switch between them when I got tired of one. My brother who's 14 now, is totally addicted to CSGO and the skins / box system is totally ruining the game IMO, one streamer buys a skin and all of a sudden its on fire. Gameplay is almost second now. I've heard of people committing suicide when valve locks accounts of high value. I never really got into half life, after cracking halo on pc with a keygen (my first every multiplayer online) and playing one game, I was hooked. But never to the peripheral stuff. Just the game itself.
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• giancarlostoro 6y ago
  To be fair Alyx is really fantastic looking I just can't afford a headset and I don't want to give Facebook my buck. Valve has always tried to do things that are next gen with every major game release. I have a friend who plays Half-Life Alyx and it is fun and he has fun playing it, but I'm not about to spend a thousand dollars on a headset.
  • moron4hire 6y ago
    Alyx really is fantastic looking. Unfortunately, that's all that is fantastic about it.
    • giancarlostoro 6y ago
      Like I said, my friend loves it, and the gameplay style is a little different from what I'd expect, but it looks fun nonetheless.
  • akhilcacharya 6y ago
    I played it on my Windows MR headset. They can be found for cheap and their experience is better than the Oculus Quest (higher refresh rate, no artifacting) and about the same as the Oculus Rift S.
• HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
  While I much prefer the subscription model myself, there's no way I would have been able to get my parents to pay for a wow subscription as a kid and now as an adult I see the problems with that model as well( grindy content, time gating etc). No solution is perfect, the problem is optimizing for profit instead of fun which is to be expected.